Introducing Innovative Thinking in School Curriculum

good afternoon

29 percent of south africans who are

actively looking for employment are

currently

jobless 55 percent

of young people who are below the age of

25

who are actively looking for a job are

currently

unemployed it gets worse even those that

are graduates coming from universities

and universities of technology 33

percent

are currently unemployed

this is primarily as a result of the

fourth industrial revolution

low economic growth that the country is

currently experiencing

the global economic sentiment that the

world is currently going through

historical imbalances which you are all

aware of

as well as the education standards now

my presentation

this afternoon is going to look at the

education in particular

what role can education play

to reverse this because if we continue

in this current trajectory things are

not going to be

looking good this is simple simple is

seven years old

sipo is currently in grade one

he’s going to have 12 years of schooling

three years of university

and in 2035 he’s going to be

23 years of age the question is

is people going to join the 55 percent

of young people

who will be unemployed things may even

get worse at that time

or if people go through university going

to

join the 33 percent who are currently

unemployed

the question is if we continue to do

things the way we are that number may

get worse

so we have to change the trajectory we

have to change

the future of foreseeable and that

relies

solely on you and me changing

i currently own artisan schools

and private schools throughout the

country

there are two very important skills that

i possess

from a young age one of them is

innovative thinking

and number two is entrepreneurship this

is me in 1992 when i was 16 during my

metric

grade 12 i was selling

hot dogs because the entrepreneurial

spirit

in me was there so i said i’m not going

to allow poverty

to work against me let me do something

and make money

this is me in 1999 three years into my

business

there was a graduation of counselors

having trained counselors for a year

jointly with one of you the universities

in south africa

this is me in 2001 partnering

with one of the four big global audit

firms

in doing consulting work for the

government

and this is me a few years ago owning

private school the point i want to make

is because of the two skills one of the

ability to in think innovatively

and number two my entrepreneurial skills

i was able

to get out of poverty and get to where i

am right now therefore i want you ladies

and gentlemen this

afternoon to think or imagine

a world where innovative thinking

is going to be part of the curriculum in

our schools

a world where entrepreneurship is part

of the curriculum

imagine what can we achieve as a country

if that was to happen

someone is saying really canta that is

not possible i don’t think we can

achieve it

i am telling you now we are already

achieving it

in all our schools in our schools we

teach in innovative thinking

through a particular concept which i

will share with you just now

and we teach entrepreneurship

mainstreamed

into the curriculum in other words there

is no new additional curriculum

whether it’s geography history

mathematics

english poetry or anything it’s already

infused

in the curriculum so entrepreneurship is

already

infused now someone might say what is

the difference between innovative

thinking

and entrepreneurship let me explain it

to you innovation innovative thinking

is basically seeing a problem finding a

solution

either through new invention or

improving what already exists through

productivity and more efficiency

on the other hand in our school we teach

our learners

all the way from grade one think of a

grade one simple

seven years old we teach them product

development we teach them

how to do market research we teach them

how to

market their businesses sell their

products or services

how to brand their businesses both

either online or any other

channel we teach them finances how to

raise capital

how to manage the finances how we even

teach them

the exit strategy from an age of seven

these learners

are empowered to do all these things now

we teach innovation through a

concept that you call see think

innovate what do what do we mean by that

it’s an it’s a harvard-based model

which i propose i i encourage you

to go and study it’s called project gold

it was designed by harvard so it’s not

our intellectual property

it’s open to everyone now it’s called

see

think innovate what exactly is that you

see

a problem whatever problem it could be

poverty it could be a porthole like in

this instance

it could be on your way to work on your

way to school

anyway it could be any kind of problem

you see the problem you think about it

you

spend time thinking about what can be

done in order to solve this problem and

then wonder

you then you say i’m wondering what can

be done to solve this problem

when you get to the wonder stage you’re

not thinking now you’re thinking about

the solution you’re not thinking about

the problem

but your focus is on bringing a solution

to those problems so it’s called see

think wonder

it could be anything you see it you

wander

and you you you see it you think about

it

and you wonder what can be done to solve

it i have three

children the first one is 13

the second one is 11 and the third one

like c4 is seven years in grade one

my son one of the days i asked them

because i asked them daily

what did you see what did you think and

what did you wonder

my son who is seven years old his name

is mihali

one day i was coming from a business

meet from a business

trip two days for two days when he came

back

i came to me and said dad i saw

something

i said my son what did you see i saw a

bed

okay what did you think i thought we can

manufacture or create or design a new

bad dad

i said okay why did you wonder i was

wondering

that if we can have we can design a bed

that is able to see when you’re getting

into the edge of the bed

and the through motion sensors and it

puts you back into the middle

you’ll wonder why did you think of that

it was simply because

he had fallen off the bed a night before

so see think wonder his problem my son’s

problem

was falling off the bed so out of that

frustration

out of that problem out of the change

that he’s facing

at that particular moment he was able to

think of an idea and then wonder what

can be done about it in other words

innovate something

and through that innovation we are going

to go into market

within the next six to eight months and

we’re going to be bringing

those beds in the market simply because

my son had a problem

he thought about it he saw it he thought

about it and he innovated

something i am saying to you ladies and

gentlemen

it is possible for a seven-year-old

to think innovatively it is possible

for a seven-year-old through proper

support and with

proper support to be able to be an

entrepreneur

what can we do to practically implement

this someone might say oh

your schools are private schools are

privileged schools

you don’t take how can we take this into

the into the public schools now here the

solutions

education i believe if we can

teach innovative thinking and how do

remember we haven’t

it’s not a subject it’s not an

additional subject it’s just a way of

delivering

it’s teachers asking learners after

every lesson

what did you see from this poetry lesson

what did you think of it

and what did you wonder it’s teachers

asking learners after every mathematics

class after every history class

after every geography class after every

essential class or any language or any

lesson asking them each and every

learner now remember

what did you see what did you think and

what did you innovate

out of every lesson there’s something to

innovate

effectively every child their world now

opens up

towards innovative thinking their world

now is not limited

to what they know their world is not

limited to what they’re used to

they are able to think innovatively so

the first thing

that you have to do is to introduce

innovative thinking

now through either this concept or any

other concept there are a lot of models

that you can use this design thinking

there’s quite a lot of them

but the most one of the critical things

that we have to introduce

we have to encourage sorry we have to

encourage

our learners to come up with crazy ideas

teachers must not limit learners to say

this is a crazy idea there’s nothing

such as a crazy idea and then secondly

obviously the introduction of

entrepreneurship

into into the mainstream

uh through from grade one finally

someone will say

santa let me tell you this is not

possible

as you can see the impact the financial

impact is very minimal

so there is no additional resources that

we need except

to retrain the teachers to let the

teachers under make the teachers

understand

that they need to give kids a space to

make the teachers

give the learners an opportunity to see

to think and innovatively can go with me

see

think innovate

that’s key it is very important now what

is the output

the country is currently sitting with

lots of minerals underground

but we are currently struggling to

beneficiate those minerals

we believe if we teach our learners from

grade one all the way to metric and

tertiary institutions

our learners are going to be able to

come up with solutions to beneficiate

those those minerals and secondly

we we believe that research and

development is going to strengthen

as a country and finally we will all of

a sudden see

fourth industrial revolution not as a

threat but as an opportunity

in the meantime the fourth industrial

revolution is a big threat

to the labor force however if we teach

our learners from day one when they

arrive at school at the age of seven if

we teach simple

from day one when he arrives at school

innovative thinking

i can tell you sibo will not be

threatened by the fourth

or the fifth or the sixth or the seventh

industrial revolution but he will then

see

it as an opportunity and drive in making

sure

that he takes it to the next and finally

we have a choice

it’s either simple along with the 12

million learners

that started grade one this year are

going to join the 55 percent

of young people in 2035 that are

unemployed

or will change their story how can we

change the story

by introducing innovative thinking by

introducing

entrepreneurship now all of a sudden cbo

is not going to be looking for a job

but ceo is going to become a job creator

one last point south africa

south africa’s employment is currently

driven by big corporates

in the event of corporate failure lots

of people lose jobs

however if we introduce innovative

thinking

and entrepreneurship all of a sudden we

are going to have

a lot of young people who are eager to

get into business

but not just eager to get into business

but trained

how to run their businesses as you live

this afternoon

ladies and gentlemen i challenge you to

go and influence at any level

whether it’s at government or at school

that will introduce

innovative thinking and entrepreneurship

and this country will never

be the same again god bless you

you